


A day in the Snow

by Pixie_Rose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family time, First snowfall, Gen, Snow Angels, Snowball Fight, extended potter/weasley family, holiday fic, letter writing to home, snow at hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixie_Rose/pseuds/Pixie_Rose
Summary: Lily wakes up to the Hogwarts Grounds blanketed in snow for the first time in the season. She devises a plan to spend a day with her extended family enjoying the snow and just having fun together.





	A day in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This will be cross-posted to Wattpad.
> 
> All characters and places are that of JK Rowling's creation. 
> 
> This work has not had a beta reader, any mistakes are mine alone.

It was a cold Saturday morning when Lily awoke. This wasn’t a surprise; it was December and it had been freezing the past few nights, cold enough to make her resort to wearing her dressing gown and bed socks, that Grandma Molly had knitted her a few years ago, in bed. She gently put her feet into her slippers and padded over to the window in, one good thing about being a Gryffindor is the view that they have from the tower windows. As she looked out all Lily could see was snow. Everywhere. A smile spread across her face, this much snow, no classes and nothing else on for the day meant that they could enjoy the snow. She immediately grabbed some loose scraps of parchment and her trusty quill and her midnight blue ink and headed to the common room. 

 

As she settled into a seat near one of the side tables she immediately began scribbling the notes out, inviting people to join her for her idea. 

 

_ Meet outside the Great Hall in an hour, let's go have a massive snowball fight. Wrap up warm, and no moaning about the cold or getting wet. Let’s have some FUN! And bring friends, the more the merrier.  _ <3 LL 

 

She addressed each to a different family member or friend and folded them up, rewriting the names on the front and putting them into her dressing gown pocket for safekeeping. She headed back to her dorm room she removed the notes from her pocket and put all of them but Alice’s on her bedside table, she threw her dressing gown over the foot of her bed, grabbed her wash kit and some clean, warm, clothes she carefully placed Alice’s note on her bedside table before heading off for a nice long soak in a rather warm bath.

It was half an hour later when she returned from the bathroom, nice and clean, and warm and cozy in her jeans and a thick jumper. She slipped the notes into her back pocket and filtered down to breakfast with her housemates. With no sign of her friends she figured they were already down there. 

 

After she had eaten her breakfast she went on a hunt for her siblings and cousins. Her fellow Gryffindors were easiest to find. She dropped the notes in front of them in turn. James, Fred, Hugo, and Louis. Next came the Ravenclaws Molly and Rose, then the Hufflepuff’s Frank and Lucy, and lastly the Slytherins: Dominique and Albus. 

She went back upstairs after dropping off the last note. She needed her coat, hat, scarves, and gloves. And also to change into her winter boots to make completely sure that her toes didn’t freeze. Ten minutes later, and she was in the Entrance Hall waiting to see if any of her family would turn up.

Alice was first to come bounding down the stairs, with Hugo and Louis in tow. Lily smiled as her fellow second-year Gryffindors came towards her, wrapped up as much as she was herself. “I knew I could count on you guys.” She smiled. “Let us hope some of the older ones join us.” 

“Dom will, she may pretend otherwise, but she does love the snow and a good snowball fight,” Louis said.

“As will Frank,” Alice added. “He’ll probably drag Lucy along too.” 

“Talk of the devil.” Hugo nodded. As Frank and Lucy walked towards them, wrapped up well too. 

“Hello, scamp,” Frank said bumping shoulders with his sister. 

“Are you joining us?” Lily asked, sounding more hopeful than she wanted to.

“Sure.” Lucy smiled. “Snowball fights are always fun.”

“That they are.” Dom’s lyrical voice agreed as she stalked across the Entrance Hall towards the cluster of students around Lily.

Lily smiled, glad that she wasn’t going to be alone in wanting to relish in the first snowfall of the season. “I wonder how many of the others will come?” She mused aloud. 

“I’m sure they will all come Lil” Dominique and Alice said in unison. 

“It was a great idea, and we all like hanging out as a massive group, we do it so much that things aren’t normal when at least one of us is missing.” Lucy smiled. 

 

Half an hour later, Lily was beginning to get swelteringly hot and wanted to head outside without the others, they were only waiting for James and Fred. She was ready to give up on them when she saw them bounding down the stairs. 

“Finally.” Molly huffed, as the pair joined them. “What is it with you two always being last to the party?” 

“We aren’t late.” James smiled. “The note said an hour, we are still early!” 

“I guess.” Molly snapped. 

“Well, now everyone is here let's head down to the lake!” Lily smiled, hoping once they were outside in the beautiful snow-covered ground that they would stop snapping at one another. 

 

As she walked outside Lily inhaled deeply. She couldn’t put her finger on why but Lily had always loved the smell after it had snowed, even though breathing deeply when the air was this cold made it feel as though she had inhaled a set of knives she couldn’t help it. As soon as she was down the steps she skirted around her extended family and legged it through the snow. 

She was a pretty fast runner normally, it was the only athletic strength that she had, but it did make it nearly impossible to keep up with her let alone catch her when she was running full speed. Thankfully for the others though she wasn’t. 

In no time at all she had arrived at the lake, she turned around and saw that they were still a little way off, so she made the most of getting their first and got a head start with snowballs. Packing fistful after fistful of snow together and piling the newly made snowballs beside her. As soon as the first of the group, her victims, were near enough she started throwing them. She missed with her first three, but her fourth hit James square in the shoulder. 

“Hey,” he shouted, with a smile on his face. “That isn’t fair!” He scooped up some snow and packed it into a ball before throwing it at his sister. Hitting her hip. “How do you like it?” 

Soon they were all throwing snowballs left, right, and center. 

 

Three hours, and countless snowballs later, the group of them were sat in the snow, soaking wet from all the snowballs that had been hitting them. 

“This was a really great idea, Lily,” Molly said, with a youthful smile on her face. She laughed. “Just what I needed.”

Everyone stared at the oldest one of the group, the sensible one of the group. They were stunned into silence, Lily finally broke it “Thanks.” she shrugged, trying not to make such a big deal out of Molly being like this than the others seemed to be.

“I really mean it!” She laughed. 

“If you say so Mol,” Dominique nudged her cousin. “It’s just we aren’t used to seeing this side of you. It has been so long.” 

“Okay,” She smiled as her stomach began the loudest rumble they had ever heard. “It’s probably lunchtime….” she started.

“Let’s go eat!” Frank smiled. Feeling hungry now that food had been mentioned. 

“That sounds like a plan.” the rest of the group said to varying degrees. They all got up and headed back towards the castle. 

* * *

It took them an hour to eat, mainly because they were all too busy chatting away to one another rather than eating much of anything.

“So…” Alice said as a lull came over the group. “What should we do this afternoon?” 

“We could make snow angels?” Rose suggested. 

“Yeah, or we could actually write home?” Lucy countered. “I doubt many of us have thought to do that since we got here.” 

Lily smiled, liking both suggestions. She wanted to do both but had no idea how. 

“We could go back outside for an hour and make snow angels, then go get baths to warm back up and meet in the library to write letters?” Dominique suggested, making the most of both options. 

“Sounds like a great idea.” Frank smiled. “How about I go get my camera and I can take pictures?” He didn’t really want to make a snow angel, but he would happily take pictures of anyone who did want to, and the resulting angel. 

“Yeah,” the girls smiled.

“Good thinking Frankie,” Alice said. “We can send pictures home then!” 

“Ooh that does sound like a good idea.” the girls smiled. They rushed to finish eating before they all headed back out. 

As they got to the entrance hall Frank ran to the Hufflepuff basement to collect his camera, he jogged back into view, and they all headed out. This time they didn't go as far from the castle, they got to just outside the courtyards and stopped. 

Each of the girls and Hugo found a spot on the ground and promptly laid down. There were a few squeals from the girls as they realised just how cold it was after warming up in the castle during lunch, but they were soon having fun. Making snow angel after snow angel on the floor. Frank was having a whale of a time taking photographs while the other boys just stood there and watched.

Well, that was until Dom and Lily grabbed them by the ankles and tripped them up. “Join in you spoil-sports,” Dom said. Tackling them with hugs in order to stop the getting back up. 

“But it is lame…” James whined, like a big baby. 

“Tough!” Dom, wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

“Fine,” he huffed. “If I have to do it so do you guys.” He eyed Albus and Louis. “You’re not getting out of it if I can’t.” 

They all laid down and did a couple of half-hearted snow angels. The more they did them though, the more they realised how fun they actually were. In no time they had caught up with the girls and were enjoying it just as much as them. 

Once the area they were in was covered with a mixture of snow angels and footprints and each of them were soaking wet and cold they decided to head in. 

“Probably for the best,” Molly said with a sad smile. “It is beginning to get dark anyway.” 

They traipsed back to the castle. As they got inside, after stamping the snow off of their boots in turn at the door they hugged before retreating to their common rooms for baths and showers in an attempt to warm up. 

“Let’s say meet after dinner in the library to write the letters?” Lucy smiled. There were a lot of them, and she wanted to make sure they all had an adequate amount of time to wash and dry and most importantly warm up. 

There was a chorus of agreement as they filtered off the way they needed to go. 

 

As they were heading up the stairs Alice pulled Lily back. She wanted to talk to her about something, something she didn’t really want anyone else to overhear, or at least not certain people they were walking with. 

“Lil,” she started. “Do you think there is anything going on with Lucy and Frankie?”

Lily’s jaw dropped, “Uh, no.” she quickly recovered. “Why?” 

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “I just seem to be seeing them together  _ all the time _ lately.” 

“That could be because they share a lot of classes, and they are in the same house.” Lily shrugged. “Would it be the end of the world if something was going on though?” She asked, gently. 

“Well no, I guess not.” Alice smiled. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” 

“ _ If _ we come to it.” Lily nudged her friend's shoulder with a smile. “Come on, before they wonder where we got to!” 

“Okay,” Alice grabbed her hand before running to catch up with the others. Who hadn’t even noticed that they had even disappeared. Which was both good and bad, or it was to Lily. What if they had got lost? It was still doable even for them, especially for them. But then maybe they weren’t worried cause they had more faith in the pair of them than Lily did? Or maybe they hadn’t even noticed. 

 

When they got back into the common room, thankfully not having to remember the password that the Fat Lady had this time thanks to having some others with them. Alice turned to Lily with a gleeful smile on her face. “Race ya!” She said, before running off. 

Before long Lily couldn’t even see her, she raced up the stairs to the dormitory, that they shared with their fellow second-year girls, to find Alice sat on her bead, leisurely leaning back on her hands. 

“What took you so long?” She smiled. 

“I couldn’t get past James and the others.” 

Alice laughed. “I’m going to head over to the bathroom, you coming?” She asked, standing up holding a wash bag and a towel and some clean, and more importantly warm and dry clothes. 

“Okay,” Lily smiled. “Let me just grab my stuff?” For some reason, she hated going into that bathroom alone. She felt, strange in there alone. Like it was haunted. Though she knew that there was only one haunted bathroom in the castle. Being the daughter of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley she couldn’t do anything but know that. That didn’t stop her feeling uncomfortable. She quickly grabbed her own wash kit and towel and some clean clothes, and they headed out. 

 

Thirty minutes later they returned to their room. Nice and warm and dry now. “That feels better.” Lily smiled as she flopped down onto her bed. Alice joining her as soon as she had. 

“Today has been fun.” Alice smiled, as she rolled onto her side to face Lily. “It was a great idea that you had.” 

“Thanks.” Lily blushed. “I woke up early and saw the snow and I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.” 

“It really was,” Alice said. Rolling onto her back she stared out of the window. “I always love the first snowfall here.” 

“Me too.” Lily grinned. “I love snow, in general, to be honest. There is just something magical about snow here though.” 

“Maybe that is the fact this entire place is magical Lil.” 

“Maybe.” Lily grabbed one of her cushions and gently hit Alice with it. “Anyway, it is probably dinnertime now. We should probably head to the great hall.” 

She got to her feet before Alice could get her back for the cushion, just ducking as the cushion in question came flying straight towards her head. “Lucky shot.” She chortled. “Come on. We best not be late!” 

“Okay,” Alice smiled. She was rather hungry. All the fresh air and the moving about that she had done all day seemed to have given her a bigger appetite.

“I really hope they have mac n’ cheese tonight.” Alice mused as they headed to dinner.

* * *

 

With their bellies full and bags with writing supplies in slung over their shoulders, Lily and Alice were headed from their common room to the library to meet Lily’s extended family and Frank. After six wrong turns and going up a couple of staircases that moved when they were on them, they finally reached the double doors to the library. They pushed them open together and walked in. 

Lily still couldn't believe the size of this place, she was scared at how much she liked studying in here — it wasn’t like the Gryffindor Common Room was conducive to studying and concentrating. The peace and quiet here was, the entire atmosphere was. 

Suddenly, pointing to one corner of the large space filled with tables Alice whispered: “there they are.” 

Lily followed her friend's outstretched hand and noticed a large group of students. “Great,” she sighed. “Looks like we are last.” She began weaving her way through the tables and past the few students who were busy studying and heading to the motley group that she had the pleasure to call a family. 

“Sorry,” she muttered as she sat in one of the few empty seats around the table. 

“Glad you could join us,” Scorpius said. Lily jumped, not even realising that he had joined them. She hadn’t noticed the bright blonde hair that was the tell-tale sign a Malfoy was in the vicinity. 

Not that there was a problem with him being there. There wasn’t the hatred between the four families around this table, or the Malfoy’s and the rest, that there had been in their parent's time. 

“Hi, Scorp!” Alice smiled as she slumped into a chair between Lily and Hugo. 

“Should we start writing now that everyone is here?” Molly suggested, lightly. It wasn’t like they were in a rush. She had enjoyed spending the day with everyone and really didn’t want it to end. The longer that they all took the happier she would be. It was rare that they could all spend so long together without an argument or fight somehow breaking out. 

At that, there was a collective rustling as each of the teenagers around the table retrieved parchment, quills, and ink, so they could begin writing. 

 

Lily unrolled some parchment and loaded up her quill with ink and stared blankly at the page before her. Letter writing was one thing she hated doing. 

“Ugh,” she moaned under her breath to Alice and Hugo. “Where the hell do I even begin?” 

“I dunno, tell them you miss them, tell them things you’ve been up to?” Alice shrugged. 

 

Lily had written two lines before she shook her head and ripped off the top of her parchment and screwed it into a ball and throwing it to the middle of the table. After another ten attempts, nine more failed ones she had a semi-reasonable letter written to her parents. 

 

_ Dear Mum and Dad,  _

_ I am settling in okay, well kinda okay. I know it isn’t my first year, but it is still all new to me. I miss home. I miss your cooking mum. Though the house elves are doing a great job, the food is scrummy, and I am definitely well-fed.  _

_ We had our first snowfall overnight. I woke up and the grounds I could see from the window were blanketed in snow. We all went out together and had a massive snowball fight near the lake. It was so much fun! Even if it was freezing cold. Even if we did get soaking wet.  _

_ When I say we I mean me, James, Albus, Molly, Lucy, Dom, Louis. Rose, Hugo, Fred. Even Frank and Alice joined us. We really do need to spend more time together, definitely if how much fun we had today is anything to go by. It just isn’t easy when we are all so far apart. I thought you would be happy that we even include the Longbottoms. They really are like family to us.  _

_ We’re currently all sat together in the library, writing letters home. The table is littered with screwed up balls of parchment, looks like I am not the only one who has struggled.  _

 

_ I cannot wait to come home for Christmas!  _

_ Love you always _

_ Lily xo _

 

She reread her final letter and smiled. Pleased with the final product. Now all she had to do was wait for it to dry. 

“Are you done now?” Alice smiled. 

“Yeah,” Lily sighed. “Finally.” 

“Lucky, I am still going.” Alice shrugged. 

“You’ll get there.” 

Lily looked around the table. She wasn’t the only one finished, but she felt like she should be doing something other than just sitting there. So she got up and headed over to the bookcases. She could find a book on something she was studying and take notes right? Make the most of her time in here. 

She found herself in the section with books on magical creatures and the like. She found a book on Banshee’s, she knew that was the next topic to come up in Defence Against the Dark Arts, so figured reading and taking some notes wouldn’t hurt. Getting a little ahead wasn’t a bad thing. Right?

She returned to the table cradling the book in her arms and sat back down.    
“What have you got there Lil?” Frank asked, curious. 

“A book on Banshees.” She shrugged. “Figured I would read ahead a little.” 

“That sounds like a really smart plan Lily.” Molly smiled. 

“Thanks.” she shrugged before burying her head in the book. 

 

_ A Banshee is a Dark Creature native to Ireland and Scotland. They appear as women and have fatal cries.  _ The book read. Lily was scared to read on, but part of her couldn’t help it. 

 

An hour later, with a page and a half of notes, she began yawning. She finally looked up from her book to notice that some of the others had disappeared. Alice, Dom, and Hugo were the only ones left. “Where…” she started looking around. “Where did the others go?” 

“They’d all finished, and it was getting late, so they headed back to their common rooms, or off to bed,” Dom said.

“How come you guys are still here?” 

“Still writing.” Dom and Hugo said, waving their quill end at the unfinished letters before them. 

Lily turned to Alice, “and you?” 

“Waiting for you.” She blushed. “I didn’t want either of us to end up getting lost.” 

“Thanks.” Lily smiled. She hated getting lost, and still did so all too often when she wasn’t a first year anymore. “You guys okay if we head off?” 

“Sure.” they smiled. “Good night.” 

“Night,” Lily said. Rolling up her now dry letter and notes. She put them and her ink pot and quill back into her bag and swung it over her shoulder as she stood up.

Before they headed off fully Lily turned to Alice. “Just gonna nip this back to its shelf, okay?” 

“Sure.” Alice smiled. Leaning on the back of her chair to wait. 

As Lily returned she waved at the other two. “See you.” She smiled as they headed off back to their common room. Praying that they wouldn't get lost, not this time. 

* * *

Half an hour later, a sleepy Lily and Alice were in their pajamas and curled up in bed. “G’Night Allie,” Lily said, well slurred in her sleepy state.

“Night,” Alice replied. Not that Lily heard her, she was already asleep. Dreaming of what they had got up to that day. She fell asleep with a smile on her face, hugging her favourite teddy bear tight to her chest as she rolled onto her and settling into a deep sleep. 


End file.
